[Kate] The Problems With Hotel Rooms

Look, I've spent the last five months or so living mostly living out of hotel (I say mostly because the Air BnBs we occasionally use).  I've had to figure out how to live in them, mostly when I'm sharing a room with my two siblings.

First and foremost, power outlets.  To everyone out there in the hotel world, for heaven's sake, put more that two power outlets in the room!  And I'm begging you, put them by the beds!  For example, in the hotel room where I currently sit, by moving the lamp's cord, we managed to get two power outlets for the three of us.  The result: a mishmash of cords and adapters getting tangled and confused.

Our communal cord station in our current hotel room
...pardon the Twix wrappers.

The best part?  The two power outlets are literally smack dab across the room from the main bed.  So I can't easily plug my phone in by my bed when I'm ready for bed, and my phone alarm in the morning would end up going off bang across the room.  Not ideal.

And then there's storage.  Look, we have three suitcases and three backpacks in the kids hotel room, but in almost 100% of the hotel rooms where we've stayed, there is only one luggage stand, and precious few other feasible platforms to place bags.

Then in some hotel rooms, there isn't any bathroom privacy!  And I don't just mean that the door doesn't lock.  I mean there literally isn't a bathroom door.  Or the door is made of glass.  So everyone can see you in the bathroom.  For example, in our hotel room in Rabat, there was a door to the bathroom...it was just covered in holes.  For no particular reason, it seemed, other than design.  Not helpful!  Everyone can see you!

This is the bathroom from Rabat.  You can see the edges of the
two black sliding doors with holes on either side of the image.

And let's not forget how so many hotels don't have hair conditioner.  I'm living in hotel bathrooms pretty much 24/7.  I really would appreciate hair conditioner.

Look, I get some things in hotel rooms are not realistic, such as unlimited plugs.  But surely some things are not that complicated to fix (Like the privacy concerns! Just add a solid door and everything good.  I mean really, who's call was it to have a door that didn't serve the true purpose of a door?????).  So please, if you're a hotel director reading this for some random reason...please fix it.

[Kara] Minimalist Toiletries

Do I have drawers and drawers of assorted toiletries at home?  Of course.  Do I use them all?  Of course not.  Was I nervous about living for six months with only a tiny portion of what I have at home?  Yes.  Was I particularly nervous because I knew we'd be taking lots and lots of pictures and I'd want to look nice in them?  Yes! 

Has it been hard?  NO.  It's been awesome.  I get ready every morning in five minutes flat because I have no choices to make.  Let me show you what I have.

Hair Care

I left my curling iron at home (sniff) and just brought a brush, some hair ties and travel-sized shampoo and conditioner (which I've replenished when possible from hotel rooms).  I also recently bought solid shampoo and conditioner bars from Lush and they will work in a pinch.  I will do a review of those in the next couple of days.

I also have a small bottle of powdered dry shampoo because dry shampoo is amazing and I don't want to live without it.

Of all hair issues, I was most nervous about keeping my hair colored on our journey.  I found compact, super convenient hair dye in Thailand and bought several packages to keep me un-gray through the end of our trip.  Now that we are in Europe, hair dye is easy to find at large supermarkets.

Makeup

I'm generally a minimalist with makeup, but I have to have my brand of eye liner and my brand of lipstick.  I bought brand new eye liner and lipstick right before our trip began and they're lasting just fine.  I also wear mascara and eyeshadow, so I brought one option for each of those.  A few times I've wished I had concealer, foundation or at least pressed powder.  But only a few times.  It isn't worth it to me to carry those.

I love makeup remover wipes and I couldn't leave them at home.  But I've learned that I can re-use them for a few days in a row if I only wipe the makeup-y parts of my face with them (for me, that's under my eyes and around my lips).  After wiping off the makeup, I just re-fold it and tuck it back into the container.

I also have a bottle of nail polish and a small bottle of nail polish remover.  The nail polish is for my toe nails because I'm wearing sandals most of the time.  HOWEVER, an even more important use for the nail polish is to mark hotel room keys so that when we have multiple rooms we can tell the keys for the different rooms apart (sharpies don't work on the slick surface of credit-card style room keys).

I was nervous about carrying nail polish remover and risking it spilling in my bag, but I found this handy bottle in Nepal.  Under the screw-on cap is a stopper shoved into the mouth of opening, and I've carried it for a few months now with no problems.

Skin Care

I've never found a daily moisturizer/sunscreen that I LOVE, so I brought this Aveeno one along with me.  It's advantages are that it's relatively large, so holds a lot of moisturizer, and the pump top locks when you turn it to the side.  No leaking in my bag!  I did run out of this and replaced it while we were in the US for a few days.  However, finding face moisturizer/sunscreen isn't too hard around the world.

I also like to use eye cream at night.  Again, I'm not loyal to a particular brand.  This Olay container has lasted me a long time, but its almost empty.  It will be easy for me to replace it here in Europe.

Finally, I love having a nice quality tube of hand/body lotion.  Ahh.  A little bit of the good stuff goes a long way.  I have two right now that I'm using (one I brought and one was a gift from an AirBnB host).

Miscellaneous

Interestingly, some of the hotels we've stayed in have put out disposable razors and small tubes of shaving cream in their bathrooms.  That's kept me in razors for shaving my legs.  The shaving cream doesn't last long, though.  I've used hair conditioner, lotion and even soap in a pinch.

Good deodorant is hard to find around the world!  (Even when we were in Australia they had a much more limited selection than we have in the States.) I started with a full container of a good one and when we were in the US I re-supplied because I was almost out.  Good deodorant is hugely important when five of us are living in very close quarters!

Toothbrush and toothpaste are basics, of course.  You can buy them around the world without any trouble.  (My current toothpaste is from Thailand and has lasted a long time.)

I carry a few Q-tips and a couple of cotton balls, also collected from hotel rooms, plus a few more personal items that I'm not going to embarrass either of us by sharing.  But my whole collection of toiletries fits in a medium-sized hanging bag.  All the liquid toiletries are smaller than 3.4 oz and all of them fit into a quart-sized ziploc bag that you can see from the picture that I can just lift out of this toiletries bag when I'm preparing to carry my luggage onto an airplane.  (Our extra travel-sized shampoo and conditioner don't fit in my quart ziplock, so Cannon carries them.)

Still coming up in this series of blog posts is an explanation of clothing, laundry supplies, food, first aid and tools we've brought.  Stay tuned!

[Kate] The Musee d'Orsay Treasure Hunt: Part II--The Hunt and Why I'm Basically Harry Potter

In Part I, I described the list of things to find and how we researched.  When I left off we were ready to start.  We set a meeting point under a statue of a lion by the entrance, and then we started the one hour timer.

Grace and I immediately went in the same direction.  We both knew where we were going, thanks to our maps, where we had all most of our main objectives labeled.  We both snapped a quick picture of The Source by Ingres (and it's label, as per the rules), then headed right across the hall for The Angelus.

This is the Angelus, which is one of my 

Dad's favorite paintings in the Musee d'Orsay.

I continued to work my way around the ground floor, sometimes getting the wrong room, but really doing quite well.  I found a picture of a hunt, which I had located during my research.  My maps were a lifesaver.  One of my favorite things on that floor was sculpture of a Polar Bear.

This is the polar bear sculpture, by Francois Pompon.

The one thing I didn't find on the ground floor easily was a sculpture by Maillol.  But I set that aside as I went up a level, where I almost immediately found the bench I needed.  I also found all the Van Goghs, and a few more things on my list.  I headed up to the fifth floor (in the museum, using the European system, there is ground floor, floor one, and floor five).  I found the clock quickly, as well as Dejuner Sur L'Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass).  As well as everything on my list, I found a home scene, and a nautical scene (located during my research).

This is the famous clock at the Musee d'Orsay.

At this point I headed down to floor one (in American systems this is the second floor), and started looking for animals, and artists who had last names that started with a C.  While walking by, I remember I needed to find a Maillol sculpture.  A second later, without really paying much attention, I found one.  Lucky me.

I continued to roam around the museum, trying to find the bonus points (most people in a painting, etc.)  and other miscellaneous categories (marriage, etc.), as well an animals.  I ran into Cannon and Grace on the bottom floor.  I had run into them a little around the museum, but this was the first time i had seen them both together since the start.

They were working together to find the painting by Whistler.  I had done my research, and I knew that there was only one Whistler painting in the entire museum.  It was a portrait of a man smoking a pipe.  It was on the ground floor in room eleven.

This is the only Whistler painting in the entire Musee d'Orsay,
or at least the only one that was being exhibited while
we were there.

I told them where it was.  They scampered off.  It wasn't very long afterwards when I ran into Grace, without Cannon.  She asked me if I'd found The Card Players by Paul Cezanne.  I had.  It was one the fifth floor in room thirty five.  She asked me if I could show her my picture of it, to give her a little help.  I pulled it up, all the while the time ticking away.  But I discovered my picture was blurry.  I needed to go up and get another one, which would take a while.

This is The Card Players, the painting Grace had trouble finding.

I told her what room The Card Players was and rushed off there myself to get a better image.  I accidentally met Grace in the room.  We found it together.  I was about to head back, when I saw Grace taking a picture of something.  That obviously intrigued me, and I looked at what is was.  It was a plaque talking about the bench in the center of the room for people to sit on.  Apparently it was counted as a work of art, and was from 2002.  That easily made it the newest thing in the museum.

I also took a picture of it and its plaque.  Then I continued to roam, finding things every now and then, but time was ticking past.  At thirty seconds left I took a few more pictures of sculptures made my artists with C names and speed-walked to the meeting spot.  Both of the others were already there.

It was a few days before we tallied up the points.  All of us got full marks in all of the specified works and artists.  I was fairly good in the miscellaneous, animal, and C name sections, but I only got one hundred points in the bonus section, thanks to the bench.

That puts us all at *drumroll please*

In third place, with 2435 points, Cannon.

In second place, with 2685 points, Kate.

In FIRST PLACE, with 2960 points, Grace!!!

So Grace won ... EXCEPT for one thing.  If you recall, I helped both Grace and Cannon on finding the Whistler painting, and then helped Grace again with finding The Card Players.  Dad decided that my helpfulness needed to be taken into account.

So I was awarded 275 points...which, coincidentally, brought me into a tie with Grace!

SO, IN FIRST PLACE (for real this time), with 2960 points, Grace and Kate!  (Cannon of course did very well too and we're all proud of him).

Anyway, does this whole last minute points thing seem familiar to any of you out there?  Maybe those of you who have read Harry Potter?  (Full Disclosure:  I'm kind of obsessed with Harry Potter.)  For those of you who don't recall, or who haven't read the books (if you want no book one spoilers skip this part), at the end of book one Dumbledore awards Harry and his friends an extra one hundred and seventy house points, which in their case actually makes them win the House Cup.  Conclusion:  I'm basically Harry Potter.

Yes, I know, I'm very, very obsessed and that's a stretch.  Still though ... love Harry Potter!  And I'm quite glad that Dad pulled a Dumbledore....

[Kara] Minimalist Travel--Five Continents via Carry On

You probably already know that we're doing this whole trip with only carry-on sized luggage.  It's one of the aspects of our adventure that people are most curious about, so I plan to write a series of blog posts about what we've brought with us, how we carry it with us and how we decided exactly what to bring.

We each have a small rolling suitcase--the size that fits in the airplane's overhead bin.  Plus, we each have a backpack that can slide under the seat in front of us (theoretically--occasionally it is too, too full!).  The kids' backpacks are their regular school backpacks--nothing fancy.  Seth and I have been using 40-liter hiking daypacks, but I recently switched my hiking-style pack for a business travel pack and I'm really happy with the change.  (My hiking pack didn't have a great format for filling and accessing the main space.)

Our luggage has taken a beating on this trip, and it has all held up pretty well.  Seth and I have Tumi suitcases, and the kids have Eagle Creek suitcases.  We invested in high quality luggage because we knew we didn't want luggage malfunctions or explosions.  So far, so good.

Packing light isn't just to make flying easier.  It makes road trips easier too.  We've had four separate sections of our adventure that have been road trips (in New Zealand, South Africa, Spain and France) and having less luggage is key to everyone--and everything--fitting comfortably into our rental cars.

We are carrying the things you'd expect:  clothes, shoes, toiletries and electronics.  Plus everyone has to carry some portion of our general family equipment which includes plug shape adapters, extra charging cords (because they always die, don't they?), cameras and camera equipment, games, laundry supplies, first aid kit, and assorted small tools.  Oh, and snacks.  We always have to have snacks.


Things we don't have with us:

• Books--It's hard to believe that we have only one book with us!  It's a paper copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in French.  Everything else that we read is on Kindles or iPads (via the Kindle app).  It's a bit sad to travel without books, but it's one of the sacrifices we make to travel light.  

• Blankies--Each of my kids has a favorite blanket from their childhood.  It was a difficult decision to leave them at home and when my kids are sad or sick or homesick, they really feel the absence of their comfort blankies.

• Liquids over 100ml/3.4 oz--Tiny liquids only!  

• Our dog Rugby--Of course, Rugby couldn't come on this trip.  She is staying home, having her own adventure living with friends of ours.  Our kids have really been missing Rugby recently.  Like the blankies, Rugby is a sweet source of love and comfort and when we're tired (and tired of each other!) is when we miss her most.

I'll describe what we carry with us in detail in upcoming posts.  If you're curious about anything specific, let me know.

[Kate] The Musee d'Orsay Treasure Hunt: Part I--Preparation

The Musee d'Orsay is one of our family's favorite museums.  And so, to put a spin on it this time, we decided to have a treasure hunt.  

Inside the main room of the Musee d'Orsay, from above.

Dad put together a list of things (some more specific that others) to look for, each with a value of points.  Grace, Cannon and I had one hour to find as many of those thing as we could.  We were given the list of objectives twenty four hours before the hunt.  The list was as follows:

Works of Art (100 pts each)

•The Circus – Seurat

•Luncheon on the Grass (Le dejeuner sur l’herbe) – Manet

•Moulin de la Galette – Renoir

•Banquette de Fumoir (furniture) – Guimard

•The Church  at Auvers– Van Gogh

•Clock (architectural feature)

•Polar Bear (sculpture) – Pomplon

•Cardplayers – Cezanne

•The Floor Scrapers – Caillebotte

•The Angelus – Millet

•The Source -- Ingres

Any work by (100 pts for each artist found):

•Monet

•Gaugin

•Whistler

•Maillol (sculpture only)

•Degas

Miscellaneous (100 pts each unless otherwise marked)

•Painting of a market scene

•Painting of a religious scene

•Painting of at home scene

•Painting of a nautical scene

•Painting of a hunt

•Painting of a marriage

•Painting of a murder

•Painting of a miracle

•Each different animal you can see in the museum on paintings and in sculptures (10 points each)

Bonus (200 pts each)

•Painting with the most people

•Painting with the most animals

•Oldest piece of art

•Most recent piece of art

Each of us had a very different strategy of preparing for the scavenger hunt.  At the moment, there was a great deal of secrecy surrounding the research that people were doing.  It was only afterwards that found out everything that people had been doing.

Cannon found some pictures of all of the specified paintings, along with when they were painted and the artist.  He also had the lifespans of the specified artists, and a few notes considering which paintings to use for the miscellaneous and bonus sections.

Grace made hand drawn maps of the museum's layout, labeling where certain works of art were, as well as a list of the artwork to find on each floor.

I also made maps with added labels, but digitally, which I could access from my phone.  I had pictures of all the specific paintings I had to find, and lists of places where I could find artwork from the specified artists.  I spent a lot of time going through the Musee d'Orsay website, and consequently had already found paintings of a nautical scene and a hunt.



The next day, we got to the museum and prepared to start.  Then Dad threw in a wild card, which was an added thing to look for that we hadn't had time to research.  He told us that now any work created by an artist whose last name started with a C was worth twenty five points.  Uh oh.  I decided not to worry about that for now.  I'd get everything I had a location for before I worried about that.  Dad started the timer.

See Part II for the hunt itself, and who wins!

[Grace] D-Day Beaches in Normandy

We have been staying in Paris, but since we are staying there for three weeks, we decided to rent a car and drive out to the countryside. We drove to Loire Valley, saw some chateaus, the next day went to Mont Saint-Michel and, finally, in Normandy we went to historical World War II sites.

In preparation for this trip, my dad starting teaching my siblings and I about WW II. I knew the basics of what happened, but most of the events I was unfamiliar with. I learned about Germany's invasion of Europe, their relation/invasion of the Soviet Union and the United States' involvement. I found all of this fascinating, and so I was very excited to go to the D-Day beaches.

For those of you who need a refresher, D-Day was June 6th, 1944. The Allied Forces launched an amphibious attack on 5 Normandy beaches: Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold. The American forces were in charge of taking the Utah and Omaha beaches. Four of the beaches were taken relatively easily, Utah beach included. However, at Omaha beach 2000 American men died. The American effort in D-Day was essential for a successful result, which was important because D-Day was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

At 10am my family drove to Utah beach, which was high on our list because of the museum on the shore. Personally, I loved that museum and could have spent hours looking at everything. My favorite thing I read in the Utah Beach Museum was Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Letter to an American." It's too long to include right here, but I will include excerpt at the end of this blog post. I highly recommend reading it.

After spending some time in the museum, my family walked around outside. It was cold and windy outside, but after learning about the strength of the soldiers during the Utah Beach invasion, I did not feel like I should be complaining.

Kate and Mom at Utah Beach

After Utah Beach, we drove a little while to Pointe du Hoc. Pointe du Hoc was not a beach involved in the D-Day invasion, but it also an important for the overall plan. There was a German base at Pointe du Hoc, with big guns that threatened the Allied invasion. A highly trained, specialized battalion of soldiers called Rangers were sent in to take over the base, which they succeeded in doing (while they took control of the guns within the first day, it still took four days for the Rangers to have control over the whole area).

The most memorable things about visiting Pointe du Hoc was the fact that all the craters from the battle have been left intact. Now they are all grassed over, but they are huge and they are everywhere.

The German base sits high up on these cliffs, with guns pointing out towards the sea, threatening Ally ships and possibly Utah Beach. The Rangers, in order to have the best chance of taking over the base, had to climb these cliffs from the beach below.

Kate, Cannon and Dad looking out from the German bunker.

Finally, our family went to the Normandy American Cemetery. To get there, we drove past Omaha beach but didn't have a chance to stop and walk around because we were short on time. The Normandy American cemetery is a monument to all the American troops who gave their lives in Europe. There are over 9,000 soldiers buried there.

JJ Pershing was a senior US Army Officer who served in World War I. When speaking about the American troops who participated in D-Day, he said "Time will not dim the glory of their deeds." It's been 74 years since D-Day, and the sacrifice made by those soldiers is still so honorable and courageous. No matter what the present situation of our country, it would be wrong to forget all the good Americans have done in the world.

Letter to an American - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Friends in America, I would like to do you complete justice. Perhaps, someday, more or less serious disputes will arise between us. Every nation is selfish and every nation considers its selfishness sacred. Perhaps your feeling of power may, someday, lead you to seize advantages for yourselves that we consider unjust to us. Perhaps, sometime in the future, more or less violent disputes may occur between us. If it is true that wars are won by believers, it is also true that peace treaties are sometimes signed by businessmen. If therefore, at some future date, I were to inwardly reproach those American businessmen, I could never forget the high-minded war aims of your country . . . American mothers did not give their sons for the pursuit of material aims. Nor did these boys accept the idea of risking their lives for such material aims. I know - and will later tell my countrymen - that it was a spiritual crusade that led you into the war.

I have two specific proofs of this among others. Here is the first.

During this crossing in convoy, mingling as I did with your soldiers, I was inevitably a witness to the war propaganda they were fed. Any propaganda is by definition amoral, and in other to achieve its aim it makes use of any sentiment, whether noble, vulgar, or base. If the American soldiers had been sent to war merely in order to protect American interests, their propaganda would have insisted heavily on your oil wells, your rubber plantations, your threatened commercial markets. But such subjects were hardly mentioned. If war propaganda stressed other things, it was because your soldiers wanted to hear about other things. And what were they told to justify the sacrifice of their lives in their own eyes? They were told of the hostages hanged in Poland, the hostages shot in France. They were told of a new form of slavery that threatened to stifle part of humanity. Propaganda spoke to them not about themselves, but about others. They were made to feel solidarity with all humanity. The fifty thousand soldiers of this convoy were going to war, not for the citizens of the United States, but for man, for human respect, for man's freedom and greatness.

[George/Cannon] Favorite Towns on the Trip (So far)

For this post I decided to talk about my favorite cities and town that we have travelled to on this trip so far.  In the future I might give a revised version but currently this is the list!

Seville, Spain: In Seville we didn't do much.  But we got to relax after Morocco and Egypt (which were both in my opinion very tiring).  Also we could get a lot of math done there.  This was important because our math tests were in a bit over a week.  Another bonus is we found some marshmallows that we really enjoyed, so we had fun eating those.

In my opinion the best marshmallows ever

Queenstown, New Zealand: I loved New Zealand in general but Queenstown was perhaps my favorite town on this trip.  I loved it because we were on a lake and I think that's cool, there was a lot of adventure type stuff (like bungee jumping), and everyone spoke English.

Me bungee jumping

Ulusaba, South Africa: While this isn't really a city or a town it was still fun.  Ulusaba was a very fancy safari.  It was nice because we had a Private chef, and we stayed in a room the size of a house!  A small house but still.  Also we saw a cheetah and baby leopard cubs so how could it not be great?

Cheetah!!!

Cairns, Australia: Cairns was nice because it was a nice neighbourhood and it was fun to walk around.  Also we snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef so how could it not be fun?